


Hear the Trumpet Sound

by oleanderhoney



Series: Jericho [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, Multi, Prequel, Sort of johnlock, like at all, not series 3 complient, sort of Sherlolly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-09-18
Packaged: 2018-01-08 11:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oleanderhoney/pseuds/oleanderhoney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“I am going to attempt to preserve my mind, essentially. Partition it in case something happens to me,” he says, and sets about rolling up his sleeves...“Molly I don’t know if this is going to work. It’s all in theory really, and nothing like this has ever been done. So if I – if I –”</em>
</p><p> </p><p>  <em>“Don’t,” she says. “We’ll get there when we get there, yeah?”</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pandora

**Author's Note:**

> Heyy part two! Finally, right guys? So yes if you haven't read part one, [The Walls Come Crashing Down](http://archiveofourown.org/works/810123/chapters/1529485) this will probably make little sense. I've had this idea since I started writhing fanfic, and I wanted to explore the Sherlolly territory seeing as how this is one dynamic I haven explored as much.
> 
> As always I do not own Sherlock, his cheekbones (sigh) or his awesomeness. That belongs to Moffat, Gatiss, and the BBC as well as the magnanimous Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. For being dead. And letting us crazies run amok. :D Any and all feedback is welcome, and if you stuck with me since part one, I thank you from the bottom of my heart!
> 
> xxHoney

_‘Tell me what’s wrong.’_

_‘Molly, I think I’m going to die.’_

_‘What do you need –?’_

_‘If I wasn’t everything that you think I am – everything that I think I am – would you still want to help me?’_

_‘What do you need?’_

_‘You.’_

 

Sherlock Holmes had never looked at her like this before. And Molly was privy to the many shades of manipulation he pulled on her over the course of their acquaintance-ship. But in all that time, he never looked so unguarded, and… _frightened_ as he does now. 

He approaches her slowly, his shoulders curled in on himself, and his eyes red-rimmed as if holding back tears. These are real tears; she knows the difference. Sherlock keeps everything real locked away inside, and now his fear and loneliness is trying to break itself free. She wants to hold him together, and be there with a bucket so she can catch everything that pours out. She takes a step toward him, and brings her hand up to his face. She hesitates when his eyes grow wide, but she closes the distance between cheek and palm and looks at him evenly. _I will be your strength, Sherlock. You can have me._

“Tell me. I’ll do it. What ever you need, Sherlock.” The words are barely a whisper, but her eyes are bright.

He is still for a moment, starlight eyes roaming over her face, searching for something. Finally he lets out a shaky breath before he closes them in relief, and allows himself to lean into her touch. 

It’s only for a moment, a small shift on the balls of his feet, and when he pulls away and Molly isn’t sure it even happened. But as he absently adjusts the hem of his coat, she recognises this to be one of the small tells of Sherlock’s well hidden vulnerability that he swears not to possess. But she is Molly, and no one has ever spent so much time simply noticing Sherlock Holmes like she does.

Finally he looks up and quirks a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Shall we get started?”

…

“How does this work exactly?” Molly asks, helping him clear the lab equipment off one of the counters that was in the middle of the room. He had been vague in explaining the mechanics of it all. He was nervous and had a floundering quality when he tried, and she realised that Sherlock wasn’t one hundred percent positive on his plan either. She notices his hands shake as he carries a rack of test tubes to an adjacent table. They tinkle lightly. 

His back is to her as he takes off his coat and suit jacket, and discards them over the back of a chair. Finally, he turns around, surveying the room absently as he shifts his weight, and once again Molly is taken aback at how unsure he looks.

“I am going to attempt to preserve my mind, essentially. Partition it in case something happens to me,” he says, and sets about rolling up his sleeves. His hands are shaking harder now, and he’s having trouble with the right one. Silently, Molly comes over and finishes it for him. She gently takes his wrist and leads him to the counter. They stand side by side for a moment. “Molly I don’t know if this is going to work. It’s all in theory really, and nothing like this has ever been done. So if I – if I –”

“Don’t,” she says. “We’ll get there when we get there, yeah?”

“I don’t know what’s going to happen up here,” he says tapping his fingers to his temple. His eyes bore into hers for emphasis. “You have to promise me you won’t let me lose focus.”

“I promise,” she says in a small worried voice. She knows Sherlock’s mind is unlike any others, multifaceted and mysterious, but it startles her that even he doesn’t know the depth of its many complexities.

“All right?” he asks. She hums and manages a slight smile. He nods sharply and hops up on the counter, reclining until he is stretched out on his back. “Now I need you to stand right behind me, just there,” he says motioning for her to stand at the end of the counter near his head. “I’ll need a fixed point. Put your hands are either side of my head – yes, like that – hold it steady, and look down into my eyes. The narrower scope of vision I have the better. Like a tunnel.” She complies, and tries not to shift anxiously. She’s never been this close to him before, her hands cradling his face nonetheless. The intimacy thrills yet frightens her. “Molly, could you _try_ your hardest not to _blink_ so much?” 

“Sorry,” she says.

“Or talk,” he says again with the same level of annoyance. The usual malice behind the tone is absent, however.

She doesn’t say anything, and instead trains her gaze back on those silver pools. The scowl fades from his face, and he begins to regulate his breathing, drawing in deep breaths through his nose and exhaling through his mouth. This goes on for some time. She’s not sure exactly how long, seeing as how utterly mesmerising he is, before he speaks once more, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Do you have your Word?” She doesn’t want to shatter the silence, so she nods her head never tearing her eyes away from his. “Good. Don’t say it yet. I can’t know it. You’ll know when, just like we talked about.” She nods again, and watches him breathe a few more times before he suddenly stops, his chest deflating and his mouth slackening. This alarms her, and for a moment she stops breathing too. She almost tears herself away to check his pulse. Almost. Then, in an instant, everything changes…

_Everything, everything is collapsing, circling in on itself and condensing into a small black point. Black hole…all of it is failing. All of it – his mind palace – is being ripped apart, and thrown out of order. Chaos isn’t a word that could describe this utter destruction taking place within his skull. There is no word. All of his senses are exploding outward and inward simultaneously; grappling with the sudden absence of category and logic as external stimuli crashes into him like lightening._

_Cold. It’s cold. Back. Arms. Cold air. Cold cold cold. Rough clothes. Hot. Burn. Pain. No it’s not pain but it feels like it. Loud. His breathing. His blood surging through his veins. Heart throwing itself against his ribs. Pounding pounding pounding. It’s too much, too much, too much…_

Suddenly, Sherlock’s hands fly up and grab her forearms, and Molly cries out in shock. His back arches off the counter, and he draws in a shattering breath. His eyes slam shut, and his legs kick out wildly. A single ragged scream escapes his lips before his jaws clench, and his head thrashes from side to side trying to break free of her hands. She holds on tighter.

“Sherlock,” she says, surprised at how steady she sounds even though she is breaking inside. Everything in her is telling her to make him stop. She can’t bear to see him like this, but she knows this is vital. His fingers dig into her arms even tighter. “Sherlock you need to look at me. You need to focus. I’m right here.” His body convulses again, and another strangled gasp makes its way through his teeth. “Open your eyes. Please.”

The glacial irises manage to find their way back to hers again…

_Big brown orbs with honey flecks. Wide black pupils. He is falling, falling into them. He has no purchase. It’s all wrong. They look so wrong. He needs – he needs –_

“I can’t it – it’s _too much.”_ Sherlock groans as another convulsive wave shudders through him. His eyes threaten to roll back into his head, and a sudden panic grips Molly. She gives his head a sharp shake, and they snap open wide again.

“Look at me, Heart. Focus. _Focus.”_

“It’s all wrong it –” He gasps suddenly, and his back arches off the counter once more as another scream rips through him.

Molly doesn’t think. She just heaves herself up on the counter with him, and straddles his waist, pressing herself against his chest to stop him from falling off as spasm after spasm violently arc his spine. She grabs his head again to keep it from slamming against the cold ceramic, and her eyes collide with his once more.

“Please,” she says. Dimly she’s aware tears are streaking down her face. “Stay with me.”

_Brown eyes. Scared. Pleading. Full of stars and universe. It’s no longer wrong. He can finally see. The expanse of dark in the center isn’t terror. It is velvet. It is hallow. It is sky, and ocean, and night, and super nova all at once…_

His hands come up to grasp her shoulders, and he fights to keep his eyes open. Molly can see the familiar determination in them, a spark that tells her that what ever she’s doing is on the right path. She leans her head down and their foreheads touch.

“Breathe with me, Sherlock,” she says, and starts to inhale and exhale the way she saw him do before. Eventually their breathing becomes synchronised. _Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. One, two, three. Inhale, exhale…_

It’s working. His heart no longer seems to be galloping out of control against her own. She keeps breathing.

The spasms have almost stopped, only small tremors rack his frame now, and his eyes are hooded under heavy lids. They finally slide shut, but just before they do, Molly presses her lips to his ear. _“Altamont.”_

_There is darkness. And Pandora’s own box of pure obsidian…_

Sherlock’s body slackens as he finally slips into unconsciousness. 

Time resumes itself, and Molly lets out a shaky breath. She’s not sure if Sherlock’s plan worked or not, but at least he’s not writhing in pain anymore. His chest rises and falls with peaceful ease, and his face is completely serene. He looks younger this way, exposed and vulnerable. She still has her hands in his hair, absently stroking his temples with her thumbs.

“Please. Find another way out of this,” she whispers. A tear falls from the tip of her nose and lands on his pale cheek. “Please don’t die,” _you are my_ “Heart.”

After a few moments more, she gently makes her way off the counter. It’s probably best if she leaves before he comes to. She grabs her things, and with one last lingering look, prays this isn’t the last she’ll see of him alive.

Later that night she receives the text that shatters her world.

_Be ready. It’s tomorrow. I need you. –SH_


	2. Fluorescent Lights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She didn’t have to be told the instant her heart hit the pavement._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter two! Feedback is welcome, oh and I should probably say this is unbeta'd and stuff. :D

Molly _felt_ it. 

She didn’t have to be told the instant her heart hit the pavement. She was already running up the stairs away from the lab when she barreled head first into a tall man in a three piece suit. He grabbed her by the arms and forced her to calm down and focus. 

“Doctor Hooper. We haven’t much time. My team is taking him to the morgue as per his instructions. I don’t know what your role in all of this is, but he was quite adamant on your presence.”

Numbly she lets herself be led to the morgue where a set of large men in black suits are outside guarding the doors. The man at her side nods, and they are ushered inside. There is sheer chaos.

Five people in scrubs are crowded around a gurney shouting instructions and ordering transfusion bags and chest tubes. The man at her side surges ahead, but Molly’s feet are glued to the ground. The air has left the room, and all sound falls away. Suddenly she is standing on the edge of the cluster of frantic doctors without even remembering how she got there. Her eyes are drawn to a patch of dark curly hair between the men in scrubs, and it is sodden with blood.

“What happened?” she hears herself ask. The voice doesn’t sound like her at all.

“He fell…from the roof,” the man beside her says. His voice is maddeningly calm, and she suddenly wants to scream at him.

“No h-he didn’t, did he? He jumped.”

“Yes.”

“Who are you?”

The man looks down at her, and a flash of pain crowds his eyes. It vanishes quicker than it appears, and he swallows hard. “I’m his brother.” 

Distantly she remembers hearing about Sherlock’s mysterious older brother. Rumors surround the enigmatic Mycroft Holmes and have built him up to be some larger than life Government caricature. But, standing here now, he looks a lot smaller, and as ordinary as ever. 

“We’re losing him!” someone cries out.

“Insert the chest tube for chrissakes!” Someone else.

Before anyone can stop her, Molly pushes her way through, medical instincts taking over as she holds his head steady.

“What is his status?” she asks. It had been a while since she administered to a living person, but she still remembers her basic training when it came to trauma.

“From what we can tell punctured lung, broken collarbone, head trauma. Possible broken vertebrae. We aren’t sure how bad, but by the looks of it, it seems he tried to absorb most of the shock with his legs and side, alternately trying to protect his head.”

“I have a helicopter ready on the roof to air lift him to more private facilities; we really don’t have much time. Is he stabalised?” Mycroft says.

“The chest tube is in, but we can’t get him to respond,” says another doctor, pressing her knuckles into his sternum and getting no response. The catheter in his chest is where it should be, but Sherlock isn’t breathing like he should.

Molly gingerly cradles his head and her lips brush against his before she can stop herself. 

“Please,” she says, and then whispers, _“Altamont.”_

His eyes, almost lilly-white under the fluorescent lights, fly open and for the first time he takes a proper staggering breath. Molly can’t tell if it’s a sob or a laugh that escapes her. 

“Hello you,” she says in awe. He blinks rapidly, and all she can think about is wanting to hold him and ease the fear and confusion from his beautiful, _open eyes._

Before she can, she is roughly moved aside and Sherlock is swept away in an instant. She’s left standing there, a coldness seeping through her from the ground up and curling itself around her chest.

“What did you do?” Mycroft says from behind her making her jump. She didn’t realise he was still here.

She shakes her head utterly lost for words. Her knees feel weak and watery. Suddenly, Mycroft steers her to a stool, and she sits gratefully. She can’t get the image of Sherlock, eyes closed and deathly still, out of her mind. His eyes should never be closed, they were conduits of light, and the thought of them never opening again twisted something painful in her chest. 

She startles again when Mycroft appears in front of her with a wet cloth. It takes her a moment to realise he is wiping down her hands that are covered in blood. Sherlock’s blood. She closes her eyes, not wanting to see that mocking scarlet. She opens them again when she feels a blanket being draped over her shoulders. Vaguely she wonders where it came from, and when she turns to look she realises she is clutching the fabric of Sherlock’s coat. A painful gasp tears itself from her lips.

“I am sorry,” Mycroft says. He looks unsure, his hands behind his back, and Molly can see the family resemblance in the nervous way he shifts on his feet. “It was the only thing available. And you’re in shock. I hear this sort of thing helps.” 

She nods and pulls it closer around her. She can smell the blood on the right lapel, and she shudders again. Oddly, she doesn’t want to take it off, however. It’s still warm from when he wore it last (my God was it only a few moments ago?) and she is glad they didn’t cut it off of him as trauma surgeons are wont to do.

“Where is he going?” she finally manages.

“He is going to a secure medical facility where he can be treated and recover discreetly.”

“You knew about it too? About his plan?” She knows it a stupid question, but right now she feels like she needs to keep talking.

“Yes. He came to me shortly before visiting you. Although he didn’t tell me much more other than he was going to need help after…” He clears his throat. After a moment he pulls up a stool for himself and sits so he can talk to her at eye-level. “What I need to know, Doctor Hooper, is what your role in all of this is.”

“I don’t know how much I can tell you. Sherlock warned me it was dangerous. If the wrong people found out about – about what he can do…they would destroy him. He said he was worried there was potential for him to be used for the wrong reasons. I didn’t know what he meant, but he was concerned. Almost like he didn’t know the full extent of what he was about to do either.”

Mycroft concedes this with a nod of his head. “Tell me what you can. It is imperative that I know.”

She takes a deep breath, inhaling in the scent of cardamom and rain water and wool coat. It smells like his midnight hair, and when she had twined her fingers into it for the first time the night before, it lingered in her skin until she got home. 

“He told me his mind was like a hard drive. Like a computer he could store and delete bits of information at will.”

“Solar system,” Mycroft says under his breath, a small smile playing on his lips. It’s a curious, fond smile, and she doesn’t know what to make of it. Smiling seems contrary to his inherently austere nature, and the fact that it was Sherlock who could bring about such a reaction was astonishing. “Continue,” he urges.

“Well, he claimed he developed a method – a backup. Like an external hard drive…but not. He was rather vague. He called it ‘partitioning his mind’ in case anything happened to his body. He said it was a long shot, but he was confident in his theory. He knew where things were heading with Moriarty all along.” She suppresses a shudder remembering how close she came to the psychopath at one point. “The thing is, he could only do so much. He needed someone he trusted to be there, to keep him focussed as he ‘tore down the walls’ as he put it.”

“And so he came to you. How interesting and rather…unexpected that he chose you of all people,” Mycroft says, a bemused look on his face. Molly decides not to take offence. To be honest she isn’t sure why Sherlock asked for her help either. After all, she isn’t John. “There’s something more though, isn’t there? Some other reason why you were required.” His eyes flash over her face in a way that is achingly familiar.

Leave it to a Holmes to know when she wasn’t telling the whole story. She decides there’s no use in denying it, but that didn’t mean she needed to say more than she had to. “Yes. He entrusted me with something. I keep the hidden part of his mind intact, and I am able to restore it.”

“That thing you did…you whispered something. A word. You _unlocked_ him, didn’t you?”

She remains silent, but the answer is clear.

“How intriguing. Extraordinary to say the least. Sherlock always did have to be unique, and it would be fitting that he made himself the most interesting puzzle of them all. Oh, if only he could hear me I would never hear the end of it,” he chuckles. “I suppose it would violate my brother’s confidence in you to share what this particular word is?” She eyes him guardedly. “I thought so.”

“He’ll be okay, right?” she says in a small voice.

“Oh I imagine so,” he says with an air of boredom. It hinges on being forced in order to mask the concern. “He’s too bull-headed to let something like gravity stop him.”

Molly lets out a harsh laugh that breaks into a sob of relief. Sherlock was infuriatingly stubborn, and she had never been more grateful of the fact.

“There is one more request I am to make of you, Miss Hooper,” Mycroft says rising from the stool.

“Yes. Anything.” She takes his offered hand and stands, feeling a bit stronger.

“Doctor Watson is in the A&E. It would be best if he had somebody. He – Sherlock would want that.”

...

Molly wavers in the doorway of the exam room as the doctor finishes disinfecting the scrape on John’s temple. He doesn’t even register the pain, and stares blankly into space. She waits until the doctor is finished with the plasters, worrying Sherlock’s coat between her fingers the whole time. She wasn’t aware that she brought it with her at first, and when she went to take it back to the morgue it just felt so wrong to leave it there. She wants to put the coat around John’s shoulders like Mycroft did for her, but then she remembers that she can’t tell him it’s alright and that Sherlock is okay, and the coat isn’t just a coat to him anymore, but a shroud. Her heart aches for him, aches in a way that she feels grateful not to be him. The doctor finally leaves with a nod. John still doesn’t tear his eyes from a spot on the wall.

“John?”

He looks at her with glazed eyes, and for a moment it seems as if he has no idea who she is. Finally, recognition crashes over him, and he swallows hard. 

“Molly,” he acknowledges before finally registering what she’s holding. He presses his lips together so tightly that they turn white, and he drops his head into his hands. “Jesus, God.” His voice is wretched and he begins to tremble.

Molly abandons the coat on the small counter, and comforts him with her embrace instead. He leans against her, his exhaustion and grief a palpable thing that causes her breath to hitch. He is breaking apart in her arms, and even though his eyes are dry, she knows that his chest is filled with shards of glass. She wants to tell him, _oh how she wants to tell him!_ She wants to share her fear and joy and put him back together, but she knows she can’t. So she cries into his hair instead.

Ever the kind, caring doctor, his arms come up and hold her equally close. This makes her cry even more because she’s the one that should be there for him not the other way around, because she knows Sherlock’s alive, and she won’t have to go through this soul ripping loss like he will, and it suddenly feels like a gift she doesn’t deserve. John misreads her guilty sobbing and gets off the table so he can hold and comfort more adequately.

“Oh, Molly,” he sooths rubbing small circles into her back as she buries her face into his shoulder. “I am so sorry that you had to see him like that. So, so sorry.”  
It breaks her heart that he doesn’t understand the tears she cries are for him. And here he is, the soldier. Still trying to protect, even though she knows his heart is turning to stone and ice.

“I-I wanted you to have this,” Molly pushes away and swipes at the tears on her face. She goes over and retrieves Sherlock’s coat. She presses it into his hands when he doesn’t reach for it on his own. She can’t tell him it will be all right, but hopefully this will be a promise. A promise he will return to them. She keeps her eyes on the floor because she knows if she sees the brokenness in his patient blue eyes once more her resolve most definitely will crumble. 

She doesn’t wait for a response. She just kisses him on the cheek and hurries out of the room.

_Come back to him, Sherlock. Come back to all of us..._


	3. Egress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“I’ve always been alone, Mycroft. From the moment you dangled me in front of him like a prize.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello all. I apologise if it seems like I have abandoned this series. I have not I swear. I just needed to take a step back and figure out once again where I wanted to go with this story. I am not sure how fast updates will be, so I understand if you prefer to wait until it is finished. If you are still reading, then BLESS YOU.
> 
> xxHoney

Sherlock paces rigorously, growing more agitated by the second, the sound of his air cast as it clods across the carpet only adding to the burning pit inside of him that is screaming for action. He pauses and grabs another blue squash ball and whacks it hard with a racquet. It ricochets wildly around the library into bookcases and shelves, and against some of the pictures and paintings on the walls. Several of them are already crooked. It does little to dissolve his frustration, however, and he takes up another from the bucket on top of the stately writing desk. This time when he hits it, he hears the sound of something breaking in the distance. Expensive, no doubt. Hopefully, irreplaceable like an antique. The thought is extremely satisfying.

“Are you quite through throwing your tantrum?” a voice drawls from the top of the staircase. “I do like my things, and I prefer them to remain in one piece.”

“Are you ready to let me out?” Sherlock snarls. “You can’t keep me on house arrest forever. I’m not your prisoner, Mycroft.”

“You’re still recovering. It’s only been a month,” he says as he makes his way down, his umbrella keeping time like a metronome against the mahogany stairs.

“I’m _fine._ Clearly, or else I wouldn’t have been able to give your best agent the slip. You should fire him. He can’t even keep up with a cripple.” He throws the racquet on the desk and flops down into a velvet armchair ignoring the pain in his lower back. _A cripple with bruised vertebrae nonetheless._

Mycroft’s face darkens. “You do realise how unbelievably stupid that was, don’t you? What were you even thinking, showing up there? In broad daylight nonetheless. After _all that you sacrificed?”_ His tone is sharp and admonishing, with subtle tones of concern. Sherlock tries not to be too happy about the havoc he caused him.

“Come off it Mycroft. I knew what I was doing. Besides, how many times does a man get to see his own grave?”

“And what about John? Hmm? I suppose it was just a coincidence that you timed your ‘visit’ with his?” Sherlock says nothing. He just glares daggers in his brother’s direction.   
“You could have got yourself killed – you could have got _John_ killed.” The implication in his voice was clear: _you are playing with lives, Sherlock, not toys._

“John will always be in danger,” he snaps, his voice edged with razors. “So long as Moriarty’s network continues to thrive.” Just then, he hears a small popping noise inside his skull, and he inhales sharply as his vision suddenly whites out. He scoots to the edge of the chair and leans forward, elbows braced on his knees with his hands clutching his head. It’s like the aftershocks of an earthquake, his brain still trying to shift and settle back into place after having been torn apart, compressed, and then exploded like a supernova. Vaguely, he registers Mycroft saying his name, and then firm hands on his shoulders as he is gently being eased back into the chair.

“— Sherlock? Can you hear me?” Mycroft’s face swims into focus as his hearing and vision fade back to normal. He manages a glare, or what he hopes is one. It’s still a bit hazy.

“Of course I can,” he says, but the petulance in his voice dissolves hatefully into weariness. A flash of concern crosses Mycroft’s face before he takes his hands from his brother’s shoulders and straightens. He hates that. It’s even worse that Mycroft most resembles their mother, and every time the corners of his eyes crease in that manner he can’t help but see her looking back. He sneers with a bit more of his usual acerbity, “It would help if I had something to _do._ That way my mind wouldn’t be reduced to rewiring itself constantly.”

“I know what you want, Sherlock, and I’m afraid just isn’t possible.” He straightens the cuff of his right sleeve, and reaches for the umbrella again that he momentarily forgot against the desk. He plants it firmly on the ground in front of him, hands folded over the handle in resolution. Sherlock growls in frustration and jumps to his feet to continue pacing in front of his aneurysm-inducing, overbearing brother.

“I work better alone, Mycroft. Going after Moriarty’s affiliates with a _protective detail,”_ he spits, “is unnecessary and would probably get me killed faster given the level of incompetence that has already been demonstrated.”

“Moriarty’s reign of terror extends far beyond London. It’s been a national matter for quite some time, and I will not let you indulge in some vendetta all on your own. Maybe if you figured out that you’ve never had to do this on your own sooner, you wouldn’t have had to take the measures that you did.”

“I’ve always been alone, Mycroft. From the moment you dangled me in front of him like a prize.”

That had the desired effect. Mycroft’s jaw tightens infinitesimally, but it was not lost on Sherlock. It was with dark satisfaction when he could get his brother to succumb to baser emotions such as guilt.

“At the time I did what I thought was necessary to —”

“Yes, yes bravo. Very utilitarian of you. I just hope shoving me in front of the proverbial trolley was worth it.” Sherlock’s head throbs slightly, and he may or may not have over dramatised this by clutching the back of the armchair while swaying on his feet as if struck with dizziness.

Mycroft doesn’t buy it for a second. He rolls his eyes in a very familiar (and possibly very genetic) way, and says, “Spare me your melodramatic philosophical dross, Sherlock. I’m trying to help you.”

“Then get me out of here where I can be of _use!”_ he bellows, beyond frustrated.

Mycroft regards him indifferently, a manicured eyebrow inching up in disdain. He takes a few steps over to the bureau, and unlocks it with a small key. After a moment he procures a nondescript dossier from the drawer, and holds it up with a condescending tilt of his head.

“I have managed to pull some strings for you, Brother dear. MI6 is currently fronting a new experimental program, and it just so happens that you are a likely candidate. They require someone of your mental acuity that can follow directives. I will admit the latter might be a problem for you, but they want Moriarty’s empire dismantled as well, and you will be afforded every resource.”

“It sounds like a prison,” Sherlock says.

“Well, does it sound worse than _real_ prison? Because that’s where you’re headed if you are caught out, gallivanting around London like you have been,” Mycroft snaps. He presses his long fingers into the crease of his brow and sighs heavily, looking suddenly grey and drained. “I am trying here, Sherlock,” he says in a small, defeated voice.

The utter humanness in Mycroft’s tone is what has Sherlock coming up short, and he swallows back his caustic reply.

“If I do this…” Sherlock says, looking over the file again in his hands, “I need a guarantee that John is kept in the dark, and protected above all else. He’s smart, and tenacious, and once he starts digging for something, you can bet he will figure it out before long. He’ll come after me, and I – I can’t let that happen. Not after all I’ve —” he clears his throat, unable to finish due to the sudden tightness.

Mycroft only looks at him in that familiar Holmesian way, sharp eyes deducing him within moments. Sherlock tries to remain inscrutable despite the flush he can feel on his face, but he knows he has already shown his hand ages ago. He forces himself to meet his elder brother’s eyes, in an effort of nonchalance.

Instead of the condescending sneer he’s expecting, Mycroft simply nods. “Your plane leaves in the morning,” he says, ending the discussion.

Sherlock swallows, and makes his way to the stairs.

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, stopping him just before he reaches the door. He turns. “For what it’s worth: I am sorry for all the trouble this has caused you.”

Sherlock doesn’t know what to make of that, so he doesn’t say anything.

The door closes behind him with a muffled click. It sounds final, somehow, and Sherlock tries to shake the insidious feeling of dread setting up camp in the space between his lungs.

Deep down, he knows he won't be returning for a very long time.


End file.
